


Starting Over

by Caiti (Caitriona_3)



Category: Torchwood
Genre: Episode: s02e13 Exit Wounds, Gen, Introspection, Memory, Remembrance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-01-15
Updated: 2013-01-15
Packaged: 2017-11-25 14:26:07
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,060
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/639802
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Caitriona_3/pseuds/Caiti
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Gwen comes to term with the new face of Torchwood.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Starting Over

**Author's Note:**

> Written for Torchwoodfest 2012 on LJ/DW.

[ ](http://s591.beta.photobucket.com/user/Caitriona3/media/Images/torchwood213-06.jpg.html)

A couple of weeks after…well, _after_ , Gwen Cooper stepped back into the Hub, shaking raindrops out of her hair. Her breath stuttered as she considered the darkened room. She still expected to hear Tosh muttering over various readings as Ianto brought her coffee and Owen moaned about the early hour. Jack should be striding in making comments about the rain and its chemical enhancements. Instead…

The silence echoed with memories.

They had been given two weeks compassionate leave. Two weeks to deal with the gaping hole in their team. Gwen would have been happy to jump straight back into work, burying her pain under duty. Jack had disappeared on them however, retreating somewhere to grieve in solitude. Ianto merely seemed lost. She had finally sent him to his sister’s. Hopefully his family gave him some sense of hope while he waited for Jack to return.

She sat down on the top step.

Rhys had protested when she announced her intention to return to Torchwood. He wanted her to quit, to go back to the police force – where it was safer. He did not understand her need to return. It was not a want or desire it was a _need_. Gwen needed them; she needed the insular, exclusive world that made up Torchwood. There was no going back for her. She could not go back to what she had been.

Blind, ignorant…alone.

Oh, not physically alone – she had always had friends, family, Rhys. They had always been enough before. Then she spent a cold, wet evening watching her crime scene be overtaken by Torchwood. From that tumultuous first case through two years of ups and downs, alien visits, ghosts, and the inevitable Weevils, she became a part of the insanity. Torchwood became her life, not because she forgot what it meant to be human, but because it reminded her of who she was, where she came from. Beyond the heart-driven policewoman, beneath the well-mannered working girl, Torchwood dug into her deepest self.

Her ‘other’ senses stirred to life.

As a child, Gwen had _known_ things. She knew when someone was going to call, when it was going to rain. One day she warned her mother not to take the bus. Her mother listened to her, and later learned that thirteen people had died when the bus blew a tire and went over a bridge. Gwen remembered her mother explaining the family legends, legends of men with sharper senses, of women with another type of sight. According to family stories, they were descended from the _y Tylwyth Teg_ , the fairy folk. Gwen figured they actually had some alien genetics in there somewhere. After the incident with the bus, her father began to look at her strangely. People began avoiding her in the streets and at school. She learned to hide behind a mask, to shut down her senses, to ignore the other part of her. Eventually that other side of her seemed to disappear.

Until Torchwood came into her world.

Now she could not go back. Maybe before, before they lost Tosh and Owen, before Jack’s stability came to rest on the last two members of his team – maybe she could have found a way out before all that, but it could not happen now. Captain Jack Harkness, reprobate, hero, champion, and ne’er-do-well, walked a thin line between crazy and sane on a good day. His team balanced him, each of them calling out to different parts of his psyche. The four of them gave him the stability he seemed to crave, to desperately need. Toshiko Sato, the shy computer genius, brought out his nurturing, almost paternal instincts while the cynical, angst-driven doctor Owen Harper stoked his exasperated, half-forgotten fraternal urges. She gave him a reason to be better. He gave him a reason to be watchful. They gave him a reason to stay strong.

Now they were gone.

Gwen stood up and made her way downstairs in the silent darkness of the Hub, tears gathering in her eyes. She and Ianto were the only ones left. Jack needed both of them more than ever. She and Ianto had been the two Jack treated as near equals, the ones he depended on when _he_ needed someone else to be strong. Ianto Jones gave Jack the support and admiration he craved, feeding the man’s need to be important to someone. Their relationship’s strength rested on Ianto’s subtle ability to be his own person, to be just as important without needing the same recognition. He held a great deal of the power by never demanding victory – Jack could surrender without actually losing.

Ianto would be Jack’s safe place.

Jack’s vast knowledge, his use of advanced technology, and his ability to cheat death came with one potentially disastrous side effect. He often forgot to remember the humanity of those he sought to protect. Jack needed Gwen to be his equal – he needed her to remind him of what it meant to be human. He was why she continued to hide her ‘otherness’. Gwen needed to be the human side of Jack – her other side had no place in that. Now, though, with only three of them, she would have to step out. She would be the sandpaper – wearing away his sharpness, the diamond that would not break.

Gwen would be Jack’s challenge.

She walked over to Tosh’s computer and took a deep breath. She turned on the system and started a scan of the Rift. Various lights began popping up, mostly the white and yellow Tosh had dubbed ‘time permitting, backburner stuff’, but two reds came up. A sad smile touched Gwen’s lips as she recalled Owen’s opinion of them - _”The bloody world’s ending…again.”_ She typed in a series of commands, sending out an urgent recall to Jack and Ianto’s phones.

“What have we got?” Jack’s strong voice steadied her.

She replied, “Two reds, one up at St. Brides and the other down at the docks.”

“Get Ianto up to Brides, and I’ll take the docks,” he answered her. “You stay put until we know who’s going to need a rescue.”

She gave a soft snort. “Five to ten says it’s you.”

“Nice to know you’ve got such confidence in me,” he tossed back airily. “Keep the lines open.”

She sighed. Ready or not, it was time to go back to work.

[ ](http://s591.beta.photobucket.com/user/Caitriona3/media/Images/Torchwood.jpg.html)


End file.
